What is IoT?

Internet of Things (IoT)

The new buzz word every where one tends to hear these days. The obvious questions one tends to have are What is the full form? What is the meaning of it ? Let us look at the concepts around it.

What is Internet of Things (IoT)?

The full form of IoT (as is syntactically correct way) is Internet of Things. Internet is a term well known to all, but what is “Things”? What is it got to do with “internet”. The typical wiki definition of internet of things goes like “The Internet of things is the network of devices, vehicles, and home appliances that contain electronics, software, actuators, and connectivity which allows these things to connect, interact and exchange data”. The “Things” or physical objects that we are talking about here is all these non-electronic items which could be anything from a common appliance like a fridge to even a simple door. The magic is not that these become fitted with electronics, it is in fact that they all together form a network of devices which can talk to each other and exchange information. Thus each device would have an id like an ip address which are visible to the ip networks and their devices

History of IoT

The term and the concept is not so new. It was floating as a concept with terms like “embedded internet” and “pervasive computing”. Originally the term “IoT” was coined to promote RFid devices way back in 1999 by Kevin when he was working with P&G. He was working on a project optimize supply chain. It turned to be a concept ahead of times.

This was followed by lot strategic push and support. The Chinese government declared that they were going to focus on it. Gartner put it up in the hype cycle, IDC put this market in scale of almost 9 trillion USD.

It took many years until 2014 till there was some traction when Google decided to buy Nest which is a American manufacturer of smart home products.

Characteristics of IoT

Let us look at some of the features and characteristics that IoT offers which help us create real world solutions:

Real Time data

The advent of IoT brings into this world a lot of new and complex datasets which are streaming in real time. Thus the AC in the room would be able receive the temperature data from different walls in the room and can form a 3D graph of the cooling effect to optimally choose the direction in which the cool air needs to be sent to optimally cool the room.

Large data

As the data is being streamed continuously and there would many devices that are getting added to this smart network the amount of data that are doing rounds is going to increase. Now storing this magnanimous amount of data is going just the kind of data that is needed to be fed in to systems like AI for trend and number crunching.

Shared Data

The additional impact of this data generated is going that of sharing. Today the data may be proprietary and hence difficult for one device to understand the data send by other device. Soon this data is going to available with some standard nomenclature which will help receiving devices to understand and respond to it.

Real and Digital merged

This way IoT provides a framework for having the real life objects and parameters to be digitized and connected to a digital network of other computing devices. This way the boundary between the real and digital world is merging. The phase one of internet was where in People-to-People communication got enabled. The next phase is that of Machine to People that has got enabled. The next phase is where Machine-to-Machine connect is going to be enabled. Thus there would not need

​Benefits of IoT

There are many benefits that are expected from the implementation of IoT in various aspects of our life.

In organisations it is expected that it would enable:

Improve on the operational efficiency by monitoring the processes

derive cost benefits and save money

Improve customer experience

improve decision making with hyperdecisions

Improve on safety

In social life we are expected to see smart cities build on:

More security

Better connected cities

Save energy and reduce wastage

Efficient usage of resource

Tracking of important assets

Better governance

On personal front, we are going to be adopting smart homes and a smarter personal care:

Save energy and time

Efficient usage of time and money

Better Security

Better and fuller life

How will IoT impact our future?

Impact of IoT is going to be much more far reaching than one can think today. The impact of it is going to be path changing and will in some sense even change the way of life. This is may sound exciting as well as it may sound a bit concerning. The best way is know more about it and discuss your questions with experts and others who already are in to it.

Feel free to reach out to us, we would be glad to help you understand it in terms of what it involves and what impact it may have on your business. Click the button below to fill a form and get a Free consultation from one experts who can even come down to your location to help clarify your questions.